1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and an information processing method for providing a document-management service on a network such as the Internet, as well as a storage medium thereof. More specifically, the present invention relates to a technique for improving the operability of operations such as copying and moving a document in a document management service provided on a Web browser which is used by end users.
2. Description of the Related Art
Nowadays, with the advancement of network technologies and wide spread of networks, it has become a common usage that multiple users share electronic files on a network to carry out certain work on the files. Electronic files can be shared by use of a basic function of an operating system such as UNIX (registered trademark) and Windows (registered trademark). In the case of Windows, for example, using application software such as Windows Explorer, users can easily share and manage electronic files that are managed in a file system.
Besides the aforementioned share and management using the basic function of the operating system, there are dedicated document management systems (document management servers) that enable the share and management of electronic files. Examples of such document management systems include a document management system with enhanced security for use in a particular company or specific business, and a document management system with improved users' usability.
The following shows possible basic operations that users may perform by using such a document management system for sharing and managing electronic files or a Windows file system:                Operation 1) create a folder in the system;        Operation 2) register a document (electronic file) in a certain folder in the system;        Operation 3) change a storage location by performing a move operation for a certain folder or document managed in the system;        Operation 4) update a certain document managed in the system by editing the document; and        Operation 5) perform a delete operation on a certain registered folder or document managed in the system to delete the folder or document from the document management system.        
Here, as an example, consider an operation of copying or moving a document in a Windows file system by using Windows Explorers. As for a Windows operating system, application software operating on the operating system is assigned a sharable memory area named a clipboard. By performing an operation on Windows Explorer, a user can more easily copy or move a document by use of the clipboard.
For instance, suppose a case where documents are arranged in the following folder structure on the file system.
Specifically, 100 folders such as “folder00,” “folder01,” . . . , “folder99” exist directly under a root folder. 8 folders such as “folder0.00,” “folder0.01,” . . . , “folder0.07” exist directly under the folder “folder30.” In addition, 10 folders such as “folder00.00,” “folder00.01,” . . . , “folder00.09” exist directly under the folder “folder 0.01.” Incidentally, “file00.txt,” “file01.txt,” . . . , “file09.txt” exist under the folder “folder00.01.”
In this situation, here, suppose that “file00.txt,” “file01.txt,” . . . , “file09.txt” are copied at once in another folder “folder01.” For this purpose, a user usually launches two Windows Explorers on a personal computer (PC) at the same time and performs the following operations.
Specifically, the user selects “file00.txt,” “file01.txt,” . . . , “file09.txt” displayed in a list on one of the two Windows Explorer screens displayed as in FIG. 1, and presses down the “Ctrl” key and the “C” key at the same time. By this operation, the selected files are copied on the clipboard.
Thereafter, the user selects “folder01” displayed on the other Windows Explorer screen displayed as in FIG. 2, and presses down the “Ctrl” key and the “V” key at the same time. By this operation, the previously-selected files “file00.txt,” “file01.txt,” . . . , “file09.txt” are pasted under the folder “folder01.”
Under the Windows OS environment such as a PC, in general, two or more applications share the memory area named the clipboard as described above, and the shared clipboard allows a folder or file to be copied and pasted from one application to another application. For copy and paste, the user can perform the operation while causing multiple application windows (for example, two Windows Explorer screens as shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B) to display the contents of a copy source folder and a copy destination folder, respectively. Thus, the use of Windows Explorers achieves the operability that provides more easily understandable display to users while reducing workload on the users.
Moreover, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 7-244720 discloses the invention in which multiple systems own not only local clipboards, but also a common clipboard sharable by the systems. This invention makes it possible to implement an environment, for the case where multiple users work collaboratively, of allowing a use B to paste a certain content in a local file by referring to a common clipboard from a system B, the certain content having been copied in the common clipboard in a system A by a user A.
Further, there is another document management system using a Web browser (for example, Microsoft Internet Explorer (registered trademark)) on a client computer. Such a document management system allows users to use a Web browser to display a list of files or download files by accessing electronic files managed by the document management server. However, even if two Web browsers are launched (for example, a single Web browser is launched twice), the windows of the two Web browsers have no relationship. For this reason, in the case where a document management site providing a document management ASP service is accessed by two Web browsers individually launched, it is not possible to perform an operation based on the result of a certain operation Op, which has been performed on one of the Web browsers, on the other Web browsers. In short, collaborative operations between Web browser windows are not possible, unlike an example of the collaborative operations in which a particular document A is selected on one of the Web browsers (FIG. 4A: browser A) and then is pasted in any selected folder on the other web browser (FIG. 4B: browser B).
The following shows conceivable reasons for not allowing such collaborative operations between Web browser windows.
(1) There is no memory space sharable by Web browser windows.
A memory space sharable by windows needs to be prepared to achieve collaborative operations between windows in some way. For example, assume the case of: launching Internet Explorer (reregistered trademark); and then creating a new window by pressing down the “Ctrl” key and the “N” key at the same time while selecting Internet Explorer thus launched. In this case, a memory space called a session manageable on a server side can be shared by the windows thus created.
However, in the case where, one Internet Explorer has already launched, another Internet Explorer is additionally launched to access a server, a different session ID is assigned to the Web browser by the additionally-launched. For this reason, no session can be shared by the windows.
To put it another way, whether or not to share a session depends on how to create windows. As described above, a session is shared by windows when a new window is created and displayed through an operation on an already-launched application, but is not shared when a new window is displayed by additionally launching an application. Nevertheless, since the windows thus displayed look the same, an end user cannot easily know if the same session is assigned to the windows. Accordingly, it has not been easy to use session IDs in order to enable windows to share a memory space.
(2) It is difficult for a server to identify each of windows accessing the server.
In the case of a service provided on the Internet, an unspecified large number of users access the service by use of an unspecified large number of PCs. Accordingly, for the purpose of enabling collaborative operations between different windows, it is desirable to limit collaboratively-operable windows to some extent from the viewpoint of security.
However, general browsers are not originally designed to transmit a request including information identifying a window. Moreover, when a client PC accesses a server via a Proxy server, the server cannot obtain the IP address of the client PC. Since what the server can obtain is only the IP address of the Proxy server, the server cannot identify the client PC. In addition, among multiple Web browser windows operating on PCs, only windows purposely opened by the server itself using JavaScript or the like can be identified by the server whereas windows opened through users' operations cannot be identified by the server.
(3) There is no standard expansion technology for Web browser windows.
This problem can be solved on a client PC to some extent, if a plug-in technology such as ActiveX is used. However, when services are provided on a network, especially, on the Internet, it is assumed that end users use various environments such as Windows, UNIX and Mac OS. The technology such as ActiveX depends on the Windows OS environment and the browser, and accordingly does not support a multi-platform environment. In other words, it is desirable to solve this problem without using OS-dependent technologies.
As described above, a system using a document management service via Web browsers is designed based on the assumption that all needed operations are performed in a single window, and thus has a problem that the system does not enable collaborative operations between two windows.